Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

dynaquest4, you are correct. 

But he was popular: my point being that popularity does not necessarily align itself with quality. 

Promised utopia and not delivering: sounds like that someone who is currently draining the swamp... and replacing it with a cesspool. But I digress. 

I have an Esoteric K-05 and it’s awesome. Won’t need another CD player ever. Everything sounds great on it. I have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC Jr that I use for Tidal Streaming via Roon. It also sounds awesome. If I didn’t have $5k or more invested in records, I would stick with digital and be happy. 

I have 100 or so MusicMatters Blue Notes and Analogue Production Blue Notes and they sound magical on my VPI Classic 4 with 12 inch Reference 3D arm and Ortofon Cadenza Black. Using. Bobs Devices Sky 20 SUT to my Luxman 590axII integrated’s MM phono section. 

The anologue costs many more thousands than the Esoteric. Really makes you think about the expense of dipping your toes into the vinyl game. 

Jason

ALSO: I don't really think it takes super expensive turntable/phono stages/cartridges for vinyl to compete with digital.

 
I'll say! Back in 1998 when I "thought" I was done auditioning and assembling the best system I could afford, I made the mistake of digging out my old Technics SL-1700. Bought new in 1976, it had after college sat in a box for years. It had the Stanton 681-EEE. It had patch cords (remember those??). It had... a bent cantilever?!?!? How'd that happen???! Dang! Oh well: pliers!

Thankfully I was able to straighten it out without breaking the cantilever off. Plugged the patch cords into the only phono stage I had, the one built into an even older (1974?) Kenwood integrated. Pulled out one of the few records I for whatever reason hadn't been able to part with when the rest were dumped for next to nothing at a record store. (Stupid, stupid, STUPID!!!)

Eventually the stylus drops onto the vinyl and..... WTF?!?! I mean WHAT the @$#@^#!?!?! All I could do was sit there slack jawed as this beat up old relic was positively blowing away my CDP! The CDP I had just spent months auditioning contenders to find. The CDP with a power cord, and Cones, and Shelf, and green stuff around the edges of the CD, which had been treated, and.... revealed to have no there there.

So the turntable trounced the CDP. Impossible! Jedi mind trick?

Hours later, wife comes home, "What's that you're playing?"
"Tom Petty." (She knew that.) "Why?"
"It sounds really good."
My wife by the way, it takes major improvements for her to notice.
Without tipping her off I lured her into the room. No way she could see the turntable sitting on the floor. To her eyes it had to be the CDP.

"How does it sound?"

"It sounds really good!"

Me, "Its a record."

She, "Well, it sounds really good!"

Yeah. Let that one sink in. Woman with no skin in the game. Loves music, couldn't care less for the equipment, the technology, any of that. And she prefers the record. I mean really, let it sink in.

I could share a dozen other similar stories. That is why, anyone tries to tell me a turntable got absolutely crushed by a CDP, all I can do is ask, from how high was it dropped?

An interesting discussion, I found the posts quite informative. I won't speculate on the particular setup or why one sounded better than the other did.

 

I will say no one can deny the LP has made a significant comeback. Clearly, it is not from ease of use, the CD blows that away. It is not from "Long Playing" even though that is what LP stands for; the CD has room for two LP's on it without compression. It isn't from lower initial cost or lower long-term costs again the CD wins here. With a CD, there is no stylus to wear out, no fiddling with it, just plug it in, and play.   Yes, a good audiophile will fiddle to extract the most from a CD but a CD is plug and play while an LP is less so.  

 

America votes with their wallet - no one spends more when they can spend less unless that "more" gives them something. In my opinion, the only thing left is the musical sound from the LP. There are way too many LP's and turntables sold today than from a few esoteric audiophiles looking for a sexy setup.   (Although, I do have to say, a state of the art turntable does look a whole lot sexier than a CD player, it's just another black box in the rack!)

Case in point of my own system - I have a Wyred4Sound DAC and a BlueSound Vault 2 music server as well as a duplicate NAS of the server for backup. I can draw digital files from either for playback. I use Roon as my controlling software. I put together a demo playlist of the very best digital recordings I have, about 25 to 30 minutes’ worth of various types of music - jazz, classical, rock, etc.   When that is over, I play a Reference Recording LP of Professor Johnson's African Drum Ensemble. He recorded on the UC Berkeley campus in the mid 1950's using a state of the art all vacuum tube tape recorder and vacuum tube mic amps. (A complete redesign of the original tape unit by Professor Johnson). My system for playback is all vacuum tubes. If you were to listen to this, you might say the digital system does this a little better or the LP does that a little better, as there are differences. However, the fact is overall that old LP recording sounds amazingly good and everyone who hears it wonders afterwards if we have come as far as the advertisements proclaim.  

 

Don't get me wrong, I am definitely spoiled by the convenience of the digital system and the "sit in the listening chair controlling everything" ability. However, I would be quite happy having that sound quality of the LP for the remainder of my life. Just don't ask me to give up the convenience of the digital!

I agree with spatialking that mono LPs can be breathtakingly great sounding (I have many jazz LPs that prove that), I also despair at the inferior sound of many LPs, especially minor labels who cheaped out on the vinyl and/or mastering or major labels such as Columbia classical.  I have many of those inferior sounding LPs remastered on CD and they can be awesome.   Some examples are the Mitropolous Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet (2 original and 1 Odyssey LPs).  Then an early CD which sounded just as murky as the LPs.  Then, the recent remastering-fantastic audiophile sound.   How about not great sounding, noisy Ramsey Lewis Down to Earth on Mercury.  3 LPs with different labels/pressings are okay.  The Mercury CD release is out of this world great.  On the other hand, many of my Decca CDs are inferior sounding to the original LPs.  So it hit and miss on both formats.  I wouldn't want to be without either. 

As to millercarbon's post-my 2000 analog set up was a VPI 19-4 with an SME IV arm and Lyra Lydian cartridge.  It killed every CD player I heard by a mile.  I hated CDs until I got the EAR Acute in 2006.  Then I fell in love with it as much as my 2006 purchase of a VPI TNT VI, same arm and Benz Ruby 3 cartridge.  So, yes a cheap LP set up can conquer a cheap CD player with low end ancillary equipment.  My suggestion is to try out some very good used CD players and see how great they can sound (a used Acute sells for $2000).  CD players have come a long way towards sounding like great analog.